I’ve just received an advance copy of Shakespearean Territories (University of Chicago Press, 2018). The book has been a long time in production, and the final stages were delayed by paper shortages and printer problems in the US. I’ve been told that warehouse copies will follow, which usually the sign for when the book is more generally available from other sellers.

Shakespeare was an astute observer of contemporary life, culture, and politics. The emerging practice of territory as a political concept and technology did not elude his attention. In Shakespearean Territories, Stuart Elden reveals just how much Shakespeare’s unique historical position and political understanding can teach us about territory. Shakespeare dramatized a world of technological advances in measuring, navigation, cartography, and surveying, and his plays open up important ways of thinking about strategy, economy, the law, and colonialism, providing critical insight into a significant juncture in history. Shakespeare’s plays explore many territorial themes: from the division of the kingdom in King Lear, to the relations among Denmark, Norway, and Poland in Hamlet, to questions of disputed land and the politics of banishment in Richard II. Elden traces how Shakespeare developed a nuanced understanding of the complicated concept and practice of territory and, more broadly, the political-geographical relations between people, power, and place. A meticulously researched study of over a dozen classic plays, Shakespearean Territories will provide new insights for geographers, political theorists, and Shakespearean scholars alike.

Jeff Malpas, University of Tasmania

“Shakespearean Territories is a truly groundbreaking volume that enriches our reading of Shakespeare at the same time as it illuminates our understanding of the nature and history of territory. An insightful and engrossing work, Shakespearean Territories demonstrates Elden’s unquestionable position as the most significant thinker of territory and the geographic working today—and in relation to the literary and dramatic no less than the political.”

Alexander Murphy, University of Oregon

“A work of meticulous scholarship, Shakespearean Territories teases out and explains a wide range of geographical themes present in Shakespeare’s plays with finesse and profound interpretation. Beyond the specific insights he offers on territory and geography as refracted through Shakespeare’s plays, Elden displays the substantial value of bridging literary and historical-geographical analysis.”

Garrett Sullivan, Penn State University

“Shakespearean Territories offers illuminating analyses of Shakespeare’s works that are immersed in relevant scholarship on the colonial, geophysical, and corporeal aspects of territory. This is a fascinating textual analysis that builds upon the concept of territory with Elden’s characteristic nuance and depth.”

Contents

Introduction: Shakespearean Territories
Chapter 1: Divided Territory: The Geo-politics of King Lear
Chapter 2: Vulnerable Territories: Regional Geopolitics in Hamlet and Macbeth
Chapter 3: The Territories: Majesty and Possession in King John
Chapter 4: Economic Territories: Laws, Economies, Agriculture, and Banishment in Richard II
Chapter 5: Legal Territories: Conquest and Contest in Henry V and Edward III
Chapter 6: Colonial Territories: From The Tempest to the Eastern Mediterranean
Chapter 7: Measuring Territories: The Techniques of Rule
Chapter 8: Corporeal Territories: The Political Bodies of Coriolanus
Chapter 9: Outside Territory: The Forest in Titus Andronicus and As You Like It
Coda: Beyond Pale Territories